Wednesday, 14 March 2018

2018 Candidates - Aronian (and my tips) get crushed

The third round of the 2018 Candidates Tournament saw one of the biggest hammerings at this level that I can remember. Kramnik uncorked an opening idea against Aronian that he had kept up his sleeve for 2 years, and totally demolished him. 7. ... Rg8 looked on the surface to be a hackers move, but it was actually a good method of exploiting Aronian's setup. Aronian either didn't take the idea seriously, or just missed the key ideas, but within a few moves he was unsuccessfully trying to avoid being overrun on the kingside. The game finished in a complete rout, with Kramnik's pawns ending up on f3 and g2.
Having tipped against Kramnik at the start of the event, he has proved me wrong by leading with 2.5/3. Aronian is on 1/3, only ahead of So (someone else I thought had a chance btw) on 0.5.